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KNYSNA NEWS - "Just stay where you are," I tell the man hunkered down behind me, using me as a human shield while I try to focus on capturing the moment as public order policing (POP) members let loose on the riotous Smutsville community.
In my short three-odd years as a journalist, I have never been in this situation… Yes, I've been close to police firing rubber bullets and launching tear gas canisters at protesters – but never would I have thought I would find myself in a war zone akin to the scenes from *The Bang Bang Club.
Telling this terrified man behind me to stay where he was? Am I crazy? I don’t even know where the words came from…
Breaking point
On Friday 15 June, tension over housing issues in the Lankgewag (“having waited long”) area of Smutsville in Sedgefield reached breaking point as close to a thousand residents took to the streets in a stand-off with Southern Cape POP members.
The Lankgewag community had started burning objects in the street the previous night due to the municipality not meeting with them as promised. Other communities in the area joined the action after Smutsville, they say, did not appear on the latest municipal budget.
The protest action started a week earlier, on 7 June, when Lankgewag community members set out to mark about 110 plots of land on a dune behind the local primary school, in a move reminiscent of what the Rheenendal informal community resorted to doing recently.
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At Friday's protest I was mobbed by incensed community members, some already injured.
Black smoke filled the air as a fire behind the crowd of residents was reignited.
'We'll fight with our fists'
Residents told me that POP members opened fire with rubber bullets and tear gas into people’s front yards. “They kicked down doors and fired real bullets at people. What about the children, the sick and the elderly? How could they do this? When they told us to disperse, we tried to, but before we could they just opened fire,” one resident claimed.
The shells picked up by the community, although they closely resemble live ammunition, were merely blank bullets used to fire tear gas canisters from a rifle.
As the day continued I heard of traumatised children still hiding in their homes while their parents and other family members were on the streets. Tyres were burned. Rocks were thrown.
Soot was smeared on faces like war paint while balaclavas, sticks and corrugated iron sheets were collected for protection. This was war. “POPS started it,” they said, “and if they want to fight we’ll fight. Let them throw down their guns and grenades and we’ll fight with our fists,” they said.
'Throw us all in a van'
Community members also demanded that individuals arrested earlier that day be released – "or they must throw us all in a van", one shouted.
Through all this mounting drama the community kept moving closer to where the POP units, or POPS as they are also known, had gathered at the entrance to Smutsville.
When new Knysna mayor Mark Willemse, municipal manager Kam Chetty and Integrated Human Settlements manager Mawethu Penxa arrived on the scene, the angry crowd silenced any attempt to address them with a loudspeaker.
Black smoke filled the air as a fire behind the crowd of residents was reignited.
Willemse again appealed for calm and peace, to no avail.
Short respite
The din momentarily abated when Willemse explained that the money for their community was reflected in the provincial budget. "Supplying housing is not a municipal function. There is money for the 2018/2019 housing situation,” he said.
Willemse added that the municipality was currently looking at further interventions and possible solutions regarding supplying basic services to residents in need, over the next two financial years. “But if the land is taken over now, the municipality cannot provide the services required. A meeting with the housing committee on Monday 18 June will provide more answers and an opportunity to address all the issues,” he said.
He said the municipality's housing department was committed to fixing houses damaged during the protest.
Mayor in firing line
Not satisfied with this feedback, and wanting to ask more questions, the situation erupted again.
As Willemse, Chetty, Penxa and other officials were escorted away from danger, a brick came flying from the crowd, one narrowly missing Willemse, and chaos ensued.
Guns were fired. More tear gas. Residents scattered and I was used as a human shield. An elderly woman emerged from the fray with a broken ankle and was later taken away by ambulance, and one man who had been shot twice that day by rubber bullets shouted at the POP firing line.
“I had nothing to do with that rock! Why are you shooting at all of us?” More rocks were launched, and as police responded with more rubber bullets and tear gas, some protestors started flinging flaming tyres onto a nearby field.
The din momentarily abated when Willemse explained that the money for their community was reflected in the provincial budget.
WC minister allows occupation
Lankgewag committee member Elsperth Hartzenberg confirmed on Wednesday 20 June that the meeting with the municipality had taken place on Monday as promised, but that she could not divulge information before having spoken to the rest of the committee and community.
She added that provincial Human Settlements minister Bonginkosi Madikizela, accompanied by Penxa, visited the community on Saturday 16 June, and gave them permission to occupy the land.
“He also said they were looking at other properties where further housing could be developed, so more people will get housing,” Hartzenberg said.
* The Bang Bang Club was a group of four conflict photographers active within the townships of South Africa between 1990 and 1994, during the transition from the apartheid system to democracy. Kevin Carter, Greg Marinovich, Ken Oosterbroek, and João Silva were the four associated with the name. Many photographers, photojournalists, (such as James Nachtwey and Gary Bernard) and television news crews at this time also reported on the violence in the townships. A movie about the group, directed by Steven Silver, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2010. Info: Wikipedia
Read a previous story: 'We have waited long enough'
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